Agile Complexification Inverter

My progress in The Impossible Room - iOS app puzzle game by Maruf Nebil. “Only one room  Only one way  Key is alive  Leave or stay" Spoiler Alert --- some puzzles are solved below. Day 1. Collected Items  ———— paper scrap lamp shade screwdriver tesla book USB cord Book Shelf  - opens Screwdriver ------------------------------------- Aristotle  384 BCE Roger Bacon  1214 - 1292 Leonardo Da Vinci  1452 - 1519 Copernicus  1473 - 1543 Galileo  1564 - 1642 Newton  1642 - 1727 Faraday  1791 - 1867 Tesla  1856- 1943 Alan Turing  1912 - 1954 Stephen Hawking  1942  3 Stars - 5 points; ball on one point - 1 missing star;  color of stars & books may signify the overlap of authors lives shark - pinguen - robot   - got a  USB cord in drawer (^^^)   <(“)   :|] Bird - Dog - Elephant - Dolphin   (...

Leadership desires - Info Radiators  What are the individual elements that make a Scrum task board effective for the team and the leadership of the team?  There are a few basic elements that are quite obvious when you have seen a few good Scrum boards... but there are some other elements that appear to elude even the most servant of leaders of Scrum teams. Team desires - Info Radiators In general I'm referring to a physical Scrum board.  Although software applications will replicated may of the elements of a good Scrum board there will be affordances that are not easily replicated.  And software applications offer features not easily implemented in the physical domain also. Scrum Info Radiator Checklist (PDF) Basic Elements Board Framework  - columns and rows laid out in bold colors (blue tape works well)      Attributes :  space for the total number of stickies that will need to belong in each cell of the m...

Assuming you are on a Scrum/Agile software development team, then one of the first 'working agreements' you have created with your team is a 'Definition of Done' - right? Oh - you don't have a definition of what aspects a user story that is done will exhibit. Well then, you need to create a list of attributes of a done story. One way to do this would be to Google 'definition of done' ... here let me do that for you: http://tinyurl.com/3br9o6n . Then you could just use someone else's definition - there DONE! But that would be cheating -- right? It is not the artifact - the list of done criteria, that is important for your team - it is the act of doing it for themselves, it is that shared understanding of having a debate over some of the gray areas that create a true working agreement. If some of the team believes that a story being done means that there can be no bugs found in the code - but some believe that there can be some minor issues - well,...

- "The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us" by Dan Pink. Amazon book order What I notice first and really like is the subtle implication in the shadow of the "i" in Drive is a person taking one step in a running motion.  This brings to mind the old saying - "there is no I in TEAM".  There is however a ME in TEAM, and there is an I in DRIVE.  And when one talks about motivating a team or an individual - it all starts with - what's in it for me. Introduction Pink starts with an early experiment with monkeys on problem solving.  Seems the monkeys were much better problem solver's than the scientist thought they should be.  This 1949 experiment is explained as the early understanding of motivation.  At the time there were two main drivers of motivation:  biological & external influences.  Harry F. Harlow defines the third drive in a novel theory:  "The performance of the task provided intrinsic reward" (p 3).  This is D...

Practice story estimation techniques with this exercise in dog grooming.  Then apply the principles of RELATIVE SIZING to your own backlog. Related Post: Affinity Estimating: A How-To by Sterling Barton. Dogfood David why I feel like an expert in the concept of eating one's own dogfood. Slideshare: Affinity Estimation - Size 60 Stories in about 20 Minutes . For each dog below, estimate the work effort (story size) required to groom the dog.  Assuming that you have the tools and experience to groom dogs.  Discuss with your teammates what grooming means ( in my book grooming includes washing, drying, combing, nail clipping, and hair trimming in some cases - etc. ). Start with the ever-popular: Golden Retriever (22-24 in, 50-90 lbs). The short-haired Dachshund (15-28 lbs). The Standard Poodle (15-18in, 40-80 lbs). Bernese Mountain Dog (25-28 in., 65-120 lbs). German Shepherd (23-26 in, 50-90 lbs). Yorkshire terrier (5 in, ...

I read a great article by David Harvey, on motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic) in Agile adoption. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in Agile Development, Adoption However, I find I don't totally agree with some of the comments tending to tell us that we should not applaud good behavior or success. In thinking about this I think one could apply Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory . I believe that applauding stories completed in a sprint review would fall in the Recognition factor, and is highly correlated to job satisfaction. While I believe that punishment for not completing a story (in whatever manner) would be found somewhere on the hygiene side of the chart, the side that leads to dissatisfaction. To understand the difference image that your trash has not been taken out in a few weeks - does this make you dissatisfied, yes! But does the trash always being removed on schedule make you satisfied, no? Therefore the trash factor is a hygiene factor and does not lead to sa...